Soon-to-be U.S. Congresswoman Darializa Avila Chevalier told Jen Psaki that her own financial struggles in New York City motivated her to run for Congress, but the Daily Wire found that Chevalier spent the last seven years as a professional student.
When asked why voters should choose her to represent them in Congress this November, Chevalier told Jen Psaki, “I am someone who felt deeply abandoned by the establishment politics that far too often see my community as merely a statistic … someone who had to live with the question of whether I can even afford to stay in the city I love
Darializa Avila Chevalier told Jen Psaki that her own grapples with affordability motivated her to run for Congress.
Chevalier is in the seventh year of her PhD program at CUNY in NYC. pic.twitter.com/PFMLu1V6YJ
— Brecca Stoll (@breccastoll) June 24, 2026
The Daily Wire reviewed Chevalier’s financial disclosures and found that the candidate, who built her platform around affordability for the working class, reported income almost entirely from taxpayer-supported institutions.
Chevalier collected $88,027.27 in 2025 and $46,747.65 in 2024. The largest source of income for Chevalier comes from the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, which receives its revenue almost entirely from government grants. Last year, the organization reported $55,159,731 in revenue, with $55,159,400 coming from government contributions. That left the remaining $331 coming from private donations.
Her other sources of income came from higher education fellowships and stipends, which, like the Neighborhood Defender Service, are almost exclusively taxpayer-funded. City University of New York primarily receives its revenue from New York State, New York City taxpayers, and government grants.
If elected to Congress, Chevalier would receive a 97.73% pay increase from taxpayers when she begins to collect Congress’s standard $174,000 salary. As a congresswoman, Chevalier has declared she will promote socialist values as a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
In an interview with a newspaper published in the Dominican Republic, Chevalier told a reporter that democratic socialism seeks to “save the nation” and that the real dangers do not come from socialism but the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, as it produces “abysmal economic inequality that can destroy society.”
In the past, Chevalier has called for “seizing the means of production,” increasing taxes on corporations, and a universal basic income that would allow all citizens to receive a set, unconditional cash payment without work requirements attached. She also proposes a federal job guarantee, which would ensure employment to anyone unable to find work in the private sector.
The congresswoman has previously called for abolishing police and prisons. In a recent interview, Chevalier was unable to explain why she thinks someone who is convicted of murder should not go to jail.
“What we do is that we then put people behind bars in incredibly traumatizing conditions in a context where they cannot actually reflect on the harm that they caused or feel any remorse on that because they’re just trying to survive inside, and they’re being re-traumatized day after day after day while inside,” she argued.
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